Funny
by clair beaubien
Summary: When the boys are investigating a haunting at a college, two students think it'd be funny to lock Dean in "The Tombs." Until Sam catches up with one of them. Now up - Ch.2, Dean's POV. For Angel's Rest.
1. Chapter 1

Honest, we didn't do anything. I swear. It was only supposed to be a Halloween prank. Lure the fake Fed guy down to the Tombs and lock him in overnight. That's all we did. Me and Brad. We figured in the morning we'd let the guy out and he'd be pissed but that would be it. He was pretending to be a narc or whatever anyway, him and that friend of his, so we figured it wasn't like he could turn us in or anything. Brad said it would be funny. He said we were safe.

Then next thing I know, fourteen feet of tall and seven feet of wide and two hundred pounds of _pissed _barged into our dorm room and pinned me against the wall with his wrist pushing my trachea into my spine.

"_**WHERE IS HE?"**_

If words could be knives, I would've been filet right then.

"Who?" I asked. Squeaked. Gasped. Like he'd be talking about anybody but his friend. The only answer I got was more pressure and less oxygen. It occurred to me I hadn't seen Brad since we locked that guy away a couple of hours before. "Oh, right._ Him_. He's – uh – he's -."

"_**WHERE. IS. HE?"**_

You know, I came face to face with a fast-moving semi once, and it wasn't as scary as this guy in my face was right now.

"Tombs – he's – he's – in the Tombs." I was so short of air, I thought I was going to pass out. I wasn't sure my feet were even still touching the ground.

"_**WHAT ARE THE TOMBS?" **_

Geesh, did this guy talk in anything less than a bellow?

I pulled on his hand, wanting him to ease up on the choking, hoping not to die before I passed my Survey of Literature class.

"Can't. Breathe. Man._ Can't. Breathe_."

He let up just enough for me to suck in some air and then he clamped down again.

"_**WHERE?"**_

"Q-q-quad. North side of the quad." I managed to get past my traumatized throat. I was going to be whispering for days, I could feel it. "L-l-locked him in there…"

"_**LOCKED?"**_

"J-j-just – it's just an old cellar." I twisted my head and tried to not pass out, because even though I might find unconsciousness a relief, I had the feeling this guy would take it personally. "Honest. J-j-just a prank. Didn't – didn't mean anything."

He let me go. OK, he didn't let me go so much as he pulled me bodily out of the dent he'd put into the wall with my back.

"_**SHOW ME."**_

"Yeah. Right. Sure." I rubbed my neck and stepped around him. He was probably fast but I was fast too, and I could hide. Guess he figured out what I was thinking because he got my shoulder in a grip so hard I started to buckle and he leaned down to whisper to me.

"_You run, I catch you. I catch you, you die."_

Didn't think I'd actually miss the bellowing, but Gargantua _whispering_ was a chilling thing.

"Okay. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um - yeah. It's - um - here - this way…"

I thought he'd let go to let me walk - no, with him at my back, I'd _run_ - to the Tombs, but he kept that death grip on my shoulder and frog marched me out of the dorm and across the quad. It was Halloween, Saturday, late in the day and the campus was mostly empty.

Nobody to see us.

Nobody to save me.

The closer we got to the Tombs – which are actually just the un-destroyed foundation of a very-destroyed ancient university building - the tighter his grip got and the looser my lips got.

"C'mon man really we didn't mean anything it was just supposed to be a prank 'cause Brad's sister works for the Feds and we found out that you don't and really nothing bad could happen to him down there it's just an old cellar really that's all covered over and it's just really more like a maze and when we found out he wasn't really a Fed we thought it'd just be funny if we -."

The grip on my shoulder tightened until I thought the joint was going to pop. No, God, please don't whisper at me again.

But he did.

"_Funny? Do I LOOK like I'm laughing?"_

Yeah, he was actually less scary when he was shouting.

"No." I gulped at the barely controlled fury I saw in those eyes so threateningly close to my own. Where was a speeding semi when you wanted one?

The answer didn't seem to satisfy him, but he didn't ask for more. Other than,

"_**Move. NOW." **_

Although, technically, that wasn't a request.

We hustled those last hundred yards off the quad and into the semi-sort-of-wild-aren't-we-so-eco-friendly part of the campus where the old foundation lived under a mountain of soil dug up from where they dug the new foundation of the new campus sports arena a few years ago.

On the far side of that was an old door that led into the window-less, otherwise-exit-less, cramped, damp, musty, buggy…

Crap, I really did _not_ want to be here when this guy opened the door and found his friend. Even if the guy probably was still in good condition.

Speaking of which…a large, old, rusty, cranky, uncooperative, was-there-ever-a-key? padlock secured the door to the door frame.

"I'll just go look for the key." I offered. I planned to look for it in Uzbekistan, I thought it would be safer than staying here. With _him_. Instead of agreeing, instead of asking where the key was, instead of driving me headlong into the wooden door to open it, Gargantua didn't even break stride, he only marched to the door - me in tow of course - and kicked it open.

Actually, I'm not even sure it _was _a kick. I think the door just sensed him coming and splintered itself to save him some time.

I still wasn't in the clear. The Grip of Death didn't let up and I was forced into the cramped, damp, musty, buggy -

"_**DEAN!**_"

_Ow _- _buddy _- _my ears_. His voice was like a cannon shot in that space. Even if I _had_ gone to Uzbekistan, I still would've heard him.

"_**DEAN! WHERE ARE YOU?"**_

I flinched - well, I _tried_ to - to keep my ears safe. But not only did he keep his fingers drilled into my shoulder, he shoved me forward into the darkness and dampness and bugness.

"_**FIND HIM**_**."**

I've been in the Tombs, but never all the way. It's supposed to be a maze. It's supposed to be crawling with bugs and rats and all kinds of rusty things you can get tetanus on. And I'm allergic to dust. Did I mention that?

"_**FIND. HIM."**_

Bugs? Possibly millions. Dust particles? Possibly billions. Pissed off Gargantua? One. My options? None.

Fate, luck, karma, whatever was with me though because no sooner did I take two steps forward than the other guy - Dean - appeared in front of me. Covered in cobwebs, spattered with mud, and no less pissed than his friend.

"You touch my car?" He demanded. He was huge too. Brad was so going to die for making us mess with guys seven inches or more taller than us.

"_**YOU TOUCHED THE CAR?"**_Gargantua demanded too.

"No. No." I tried to shrink back against a dirty dusty buggy ratty old foundation wall to get away from them. "No we didn't touch your car we wouldn't touch your car we only wanted to play a joke on your and lock you in here and we were gonna let you out tomorrow morning honest and we just thought it would be funny -."

I really had to learn to stop using that word.

"_Funny_?" Dean said. His voice sounded scratchy. Guess maybe we shoulda locked him in with some water. He leaned real close to me and did a real good imitation of his friend. "_Do I LOOK like I'm laughing?"_

I pressed so hard against the old stone wall, I could feel the original builders' fingerprints. Forget surviving my Survey of Lit class – I wondered if I was going to survive to my nineteenth birthday next month.

"Uh – no. Sir. No laughing. Definitely no. Not. No. No laughing. Not. Ever. Sir."

"_Give me back my damn phone_."

I pulled it out of my jacket pocket and held it out to him. I wondered if he'd take my hand with it he grabbed it so hard.

"Do you know what you're going to do now?" He asked. He sounded calm. I couldn't decide right then who was scarier – Gargantuan pissed, or this guy calm.

If I survived this, Brad was _so_ getting paybacks.

"Um – die? Sir?"

"You are going to run. And you are going to hide. And you are going to tell your little friend Brad that if we ever see either of you two again – I don't care if it's on this campus or an old-age home fifty years from now - ."

I really didn't want to wait to hear what I had to look forward to, and I thought Dean would be too tired and Gargantua too concerned about Dean to give me much of a chase, so I made a break for it.

I got about two feet.

"_**STOP."**_

Another round of cannon fire skidded me to a halt only about a yard from the door and relative safety.

"Sam?" Dean asked. Right, Gargantua's name was Sam. I'd want to remember that. In case I needed to put it on my headstone. Dean didn't seem to know what Sam wanted any more than I did. Only Dean didn't seem as terrified of finding out as I was. Especially when I got the whispered voice again.

"_You haven't apologized."_

Apologize? I was supposed to apologize when these two yahoos went two days making me and Brad think we were going to Sing Sing because we faked up a couple of ghost sightings that had actually scored us dates with the Twigg Twins and all we did was make this guy sit in the dark for a couple of hours and all he needed to do was take a bath and meanwhile the Twins might never talk to us again?

I was going to apologize for _that?_

One more look at them, Calm and Pissed, and _yeah_, I was gonna apologize.

"I'msorryit'llneverhappenagaincanIgonowIhavetostudyformySurveyofLitmidterm."

They didn't say anything but I sensed it was now or never and I ran out of there like I was on fire. I saw Brad on the Quad and almost punched him a good one just because, but then I thought of a worse fate for him.

A really _worst_ fate.

"Brad! The Twins are waiting for you at the other end of the Quad! They can't wait to see you there!"

Later on, I might even tell him I thought it would be funny.

The End


	2. Dean's POV

A/N: as ever and always, thanks to everyone who reads my stories. (And eternal apologies to everyone I owe a review response to!)

* * *

Dead.

They are so dead. Brad and his little friend what's-his-name. They are _so_ so dead. And you know what the upside is? In my line of work, I can kill them when they're alive, then I can hunt them down and kill them again after they're dead. Win-win.

Because they are _so_ dead.

It didn't take me and Sam too long to figure out that the whole "ghost in the dorm room" thing was set up because Bill & Ted wanted an 'excellent adventure' with the Bubblemint Twins. I mean, I can get behind a little supernatural improv to tip the odds when it comes to wide-eyed coeds, so I was willing to let it go.

But then they insulted the car. _The car. _They called her a gas-guzzling dinosaur and said she should be turned into a solar collector panel. Nobody insults my baby and gets away with it. _Nobody. _So I told them that if they pulled anything like that ghost stunt again, _they'd_ be the Bubblemint Twins. In Sing Sing. They believed me too.

_Ha_. Did you know they took _'gullible_' out of the dictionary?

Of course then they got some other freshman schmuck to tell me that they'd pulled the Impala's distributor cap. He was another klutzy, pimply kid; tripping over his own feet and practically bouncing off of me. He said he saw them pull the cap off and put it in some prehistoric root cellar or something on the far side of campus. It sounded like something they'd do so I went over there to get it back and had barely set foot in the dark space when the door closed behind me and I heard a lock being snapped shut.

Real funny guys. So funny I forgot to laugh.

_Now who's gullible?_

I reached for my phone to call Sam – and came up empty. Oh, this just kept getting better and better, didn't it? When that kid 'accidentally' bumped into me, he must've lifted it. Great. Well, Sam'd come looking for me eventually. In the meantime, while I looked for another way out of this mudpit, I could rearrange my 'to do' list - and doing bodily harm to those two idiots was now on the _top_ of the list. And if they touched the car, I was making a copy of the list so I could do them bodily harm _twice._

I tried the door. It was old and creaky and still tough as iron. Kicking at the jamb did no good since I was attempting to kick it _out_, and the floor in this little slice of middle earth was a foot give or take below the door frame so I wasn't exactly getting all the leverage I needed.

Great.

OK, so this way out was a no-go, literally. Maybe there was another way. I flicked on my lighter and started in the direction of the – I don't even know what to call it – hallway? empty space? that maybe that led to another exit or windows or coal chute or something.

The lighter didn't throw much light and I felt my way along the old stone walls, hunkered down to not-always-successfully avoid the low ceiling beams, getting up close and personal with cobwebs and spider webs and probably some spiders too. I kicked something that sound like bones, but too small to be human. I checked anyway, just to be sure. Raccoon maybe. Hopefully.

A crooked turn around a crumbling corner had me tripping over fallen foundation rocks and landing knees first – and almost _face_ first – in a deathtrap of mud, trash, and foul water. Out went my lighter. I searched for it and found it and shook the water out of it, but it wouldn't light. The wick was probably soaked.

Dead. They were _dead_. That's all I was gonna say. And I was going to keep saying it until it was true. _They. Were. Dead_.

And just to be really mean, I might just make Sammy think I was totally freaked being down here and let him have first crack at them. He'd be so pissed, he'd scare them back to nursery school.

That thought motivated me and I pulled myself out of the water and kept inching my way forward in the darkness.

Well, I wouldn't make Sam think this had reminded me of hell. For one thing, that wouldn't be nice. For another, it wouldn't be true. This hole was damp and dusty and cramped and quiet. Hell was hot and endless and utter bedlam. Compared to hell, this place – any place - was a garden spot.

And Sam was out there and with a little effort I could get to him, or he could get to me. That alone made this not hell.

A few more turns around a few more rocks, a few more knocks on my head and scrapes on my fingers and bruises on my shins and I saw a wink of daylight up ahead. Finally. Now we were getting somewhere. It was coming through a hairline space between two beams along the foundation, and if there was room for light there was room for wiggle and the chance to knock that wood out of there, find Sammy, and end those two sorry excuses for –

_Sam_.

What if they'd done something to Sam, too? What if they'd tricked him and locked him someplace just as cramped? This place was a tight squeeze on me; Sam would be jammed in here.

I scraped a stone out of the mud at my feet and used it to batter the wood. They messed with me, they messed with my car, they messed with my brother? That meant they got to be dead three kinds of way, and I knew how to be creative.

But – even using all my strength and a damn heavy rock, that wood was not budging. Was this place so old the wood was petrified? Okay, so maybe the fact that the beams were six inches thick had something to do with it too. I was getting seriously pissed.

Well, if I couldn't go out, I'd try up.

I dropped the rock and reached over my head to whatever was passing for a ceiling. Wood. Great. More wood and webs and annoying resistance. I couldn't find a decent finger hold, and in this place that was practically a miracle. So I tracked along, feeling every which place for some give, some opening, some weakness.

I found nothing.

How could something so old and decrepit be so sound and well put together?

Of course, if Sam _was_ here, he'd only have to stand up straight to lift this place clear off its foundations.

Finally, I finally found a notch between two boards and worked a finger into it. If my lighter still worked, I could scout around for a piece of metal or wood or appropriately shaped stone to use as leverage to pry the boards loose. Well, I wasn't out of options yet. I stacked some stones across the ground – floor –whatever – so that I'd know where to stop and look for the crack in the ceiling again, and kept up my trek to the far end of this tunnel.

Maybe ten minutes later of slow, careful treading, and I carefully tripped over a thin length of metal. I was never so happy to nearly fall into a stone wall as I was at that moment. I grabbed it and made my way back to my cairn of stones.

_They better not have touched Sam_, I groused to nobody while I jammed the metal into the wooden joint and tried to force a break in it. He better not be trapped in some creepy crawly mud pit. Mess with me, fine, you pay for it. Mess with my little brother and you die. He's got enough crap on his shoulders, he doesn't need any more –

_Crap._

The wood gave, and dirt and soil and just plain _gross_ showered down on me. I dodged away from it, keeping my grip on my improvised pry bar and choking on the dust. Okay, note to self, don't mess with the ceiling in here anymore. Bad idea. Very Bad Idea.

I spit the dirt and the dust and the gross out of my mouth and felt my heart pound from more than the shock of it. It reminded me too much of digging myself out of my grave, and while in the big picture that had been a _good_ thing, in the actual moment it was kind of unpleasant.

A lesser man might have even found it scary…

Okay, so – _up_ wasn't a good idea, but I still had plenty of _ahead_ to explore. My lighter still didn't light, but I kept a grip on my metal bar and pushed farther into the darkness. Turned out the rest of the burrow was full of rocks and webs and garbage, but no way out. After another half hour or so searching, I hit a dead end, an immovable mountain of soil, filling the space between two very solid rock walls.

Great.

Back I went toward the 'front' door, reciting to myself everything I was going to do to those morons for trapping me in here. The metal bar might be some use for leverage on the door, and it for sure would come in handy for beating some sense into Dumb and Dumber.

I made a slower trek back, checking and double checking walls and beams for any give or crack or dry rot. I was muddy and coughing and _pissed_, and when I finally got back to the motel, a nice long hot shower would wash away all this muck _and _any evidence of murder.

I'd just passed my pile of stones when I heard the loud and satisfying sound of wood splintering all to hell, and light and air filtered down to me.

_Sam._ Just as I was thinking it could only be Sam who blew open that door, I heard him call.

"_**DEAN! WHERE ARE YOU?"**_

He sounded seriously _pissed,_ which meant he was okay. I took a breath to call back to him, but I only seemed to suck the dirt and dust farther into my lungs and all I could manage was a squeaky cough. He'd see me soon enough anyway. I dropped the metal bar and headed for the light.

"_**FIND HIM."**_

He wasn't alone. _He wasn't alone._ If he had one or both of those idiots with him I was going to pile drive them into this mud floor and come back for them when I had grandchildren.

As I rounded the last corner, I saw Sam first. He was okay like I thought, but I could tell that he was seething. When Sam gets that angry, it just seems to make him even bigger and scarier. You know, like he _needs_ the extra intimidation factor. But he was okay and the idiot kid he'd obviously driven or dragged or hounded into this cellar looked terrified and I almost felt sorry for him.

Until I remembered…

"_Did you touch my car?_"

"_**YOU TOUCHED THE CAR?"**_ Sam echoed me. That's right – love me, love my baby.

Once the kid – I forget his name – spit out 'no!' I stopped really listening. I registered a lot of 'sir's' and 'didn't touch' and 'wouldn't touch' and a _lot_ of fear. And then he said locking me in here was supposed to be funny.

_Funny_?

I was breathing in spiders and coughing out gravel, covered in dirt down to my elbows and mud up to my knees and they thought it was _funny_? Beside me, I could feel Sam's fury amp up another notch.

"Do I _look_ like I'm laughing?" I asked the kid. He blinked and looked from me to Sam and back and I registered – Sam must've said the exact same thing to him. Never, _never_ mess with the Winchesters.

Again I got the 'sir's' and 'no sir, no laughing' and yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.

"_Give me back my damn phone_."

I almost wished he didn't have it so I'd have another reason to flatten him. But he had it. I grabbed it back from him and ran down the list of things I could do to him but there were so many, I couldn't choose. I decided to be generous.

"Do you know what you're going to do now?"

"Die? Sir?"

Well, he wasn't as dumb as he looked.

"You're going to run, and you're going to hide…" _And you're going to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder for us…_

SmartBoy started to book for the doorway and I was happy to see him go. Sam, however, was not.

"_**STOP."**_

"Sam?" I was a little worried. Sam was pissed and this kid was a pipsqueak.

"He didn't _apologize._"

Ouch. Sam was really _really_ pissed. Really pissed and channeling Dad I think. _Apologize?_ The kid had the same idea because I saw '_no hell, no way'_ cross his face. And then he looked at Sam again.

_"I'msorry-it'llneverhappenagain-canIgonow-Ihavetostudy-formySurveyofLitmidterm."_

And then he _ran, _probably feeling Sam's burning glare all the way back to Mommy. When he was out of sight, Sam turned back to me, gripping his hand around my shoulder.

"You're okay?" His voice shook a little, like he was scared. He was hunched, this place wasn't all that high to start with, not _Sam Winchester high,_ but I got the idea he was leaning in anyway to have a good look at my face.

"I'm fine."

"Really? You're sure? This place didn't – it isn't -?"

I hadn't even had to suggest it, he was worried all on his own what this place might be reminding me of.

"It didn't. Really, Sammy. I'm fine. C'mon, let's get out of here."

And as hunched, crunched, and crammed in here as he was, he stepped back and let me out the door first into the air and sunshine. As I stepped over the sill, I got a good look at the door and door frame, splintered in true Winchester style.

"A little impatient, were we?" I asked him.

"They pissed me off." He answered after a moment's consideration. _Aw, Sammy, you love me_.

We'd only walked a couple of yards away from my Saturday excursion when, like an offering from propitiating deity, Brad strolled into our line of sight. He stopped, we stopped. We looked at him. He looked at us.

Then he ran like hell back where he came from.

Sam tensed, ready to go after him, but I put my hand up to stop him. That put no joy in Sam.

"_Dean_ – I can catch him."

"And do what? End his suffering? Trust me Sammy, the only thing scarier than somebody knowing that _you_ are coming after them, is somebody wondering _when_ you're coming after them. He's not going to stop running until Thanksgiving. C'mon, I need a shower, and we know where he lives anyway…"

I started walking again, and Sam walked with me, though he threw some glares in the direction little Brad had run off, even when we'd gotten back to the car. A quick look under the hood showed me that my baby was okay. If it hadn't been, I would've given Sam my blessing to go take of our little pest problem.

"Funny _this._" He gave a parting shot to Brad's invisible jet trail, as we got into the car.

"You know what Sam? Remind me never to piss you off."

"Dean - _I remind you every day_…"

I couldn't resist. I had to say it.

"_Funny_."

The End


End file.
